the stones of paljassaare

(un)natural geographies and bio-technological hybridities

The Stones of Paljassaare re-imagines the peninsula through a fictive vision of the city, an (un)natural geography populated with a commingling of bio-technological devices and specialized architectures.

Waste water from local and regional sources are cleansed via a series of ravines carved into the landscape - which utilize biological agents and natural processes to cleanse the city's waste water - while a series of pressurized sacks situated throughout the landscape pump cleansed water back to the city, unusable byproducts of such processes accumulate forming off-shore islands … (un)natural geographies taking root where either one or the other of them was clearly defined.

The peninsula is dotted with primitive architectures that were at some point in time outfitted with 'organs' which actively filter various locally produced wastes before discharging it from the building or site. Remnants of early ecological remediation efforts found in the vicinity, including light wells floating amid the lakes intended to off-set eutrophication in the waters by aiding photosynthesis in bottom-dwelling plants, and at the same time the presence of such remnants indicates that perhaps the future was not always so bright.

The Stones of Paljassaare is presented two-fold: as a series of drawings which tell of a potential future for the peninsula, and an accompanying book set in 2117 which views Paljassaare through the lens of an alternate past (1):

“I. THE CITY THAT WAS, THE CITY THAT WILL BE

The city of Tallinna existed Seven hundred and some odd years, from the first founding as a City, known then as ‘Reval’, to the moment when it was established as the capital of the newly independent democratic state of Estonia. (...) Of this period, Tallinna existed in subjection to the the Danes, Knights allied to Germany, Sweden, Imperial Russia, until ultimately winning its independence in the Estonian Liberation War. However, the industrialization brought on by technological advances in the 19th Century did more to change the landscape of Tallinna than any war or battle in its history ... rivers were diverted and replaced with sewage pipes, large swaths of land were devoted to non-living structures and clearings, and waste was abundant.

Let the reader therefore conceive the existence of Tallinna as broadly divided into three periods: the first of approximately Seven hundred where the city exchanged hands from one to another, the second of One hundred years of democratic independence, and the third of less than Fifty years where the industrial age gave way for the bio-technological age. The separation of the second and third period being marked by what is called the “Re-metabolization of Paljassaare”.

It would be difficult to overrate the value of the lessons which might be derived from a faithful study of the history of this strange and mighty city, in particular the infrastructural, technological, geographical and ecological transformation which occurred in the Paljassaare peninsula which abuts the sea to the north: a history which, in spite of the labour of countless copyists, remains in vague and disputable outline, barred with brightness and shade, like the edge of her own ocean, where the surf and the sandbank are mingled with the sky. The inquiries in which we have to engage will attempt to render this outline clearer, with hopes that their results will in some degree illuminate its aspect; and, so far as they bear upon it at all, they possess an interest of a far higher kind than that usually belonging to architectural investigations …

II. (UN)NATURAL GEOGRAPHIES

Since the first domination of men was asserted over the land, countless cities have been set upon its soils; most of which have laid waste to ruin. Some though, through prouder eminence led to less pitied destruction, still existing today in some cases, in one form or another; while others, through responsible stewardship of the earth upon which they rest, and in safekeeping of the airs and waters which they touch, have flourished in a reciprocal relationship with nature - reciprocal in that they no longer, like the cities of the industrial era, separate themselves from the realities of natural but rather commingle their systems and processes with nature itself.

One such city, Tallinna, has shined above all others. The City acted, for many years, as a synthetic inclusion in an otherwise natural system. Though, over time, the City became not merely an insertion in, but rather an extension of, nature itself - how can this be so? An analogy can be found in the seas which border the lands of Tallinna and beyond wherein dense populations of phytoplankton, known ass coccolithophores, surge and fall in great numbers while actively effecting the environment locally as well as globally. These organisms are encased in a protective armour composed of a calcium-based chalk-like substance, intended to combat intrusion of the organism by viruses; however, when viruses are successfully in their attack and invade the walls to infect the cell, and the coccolithophore dies, the shields are gradually shed over the course of its death into the sea. Carbon dioxide is taken in during the bloom and oxygen is released on massive scales, and this process results in half the oxygen inhaled by human beings. The shedded armour, or coccoliths, are known to have accumulated over many years and are credited with the formation of landscapes such as the White Cliffs of Dover, as well as contributing to similar geographic formations islands in Germany, France and Denmark. The Cliffs of Dover, in particular, are home to several species of cliff-dwelling birds. So you see, dear traveller, that the affects of even the tiniest organism can have an effect on the largest of scales, impacting the geographical and ecological conditions of entire shorelines and cliff-sides.

With Paljassaare, we find the productive depositing of treated human waste acting in such a way, gradually augmenting the natural geographic conditions of the peninsula by effecting the ground materially as a reinforcement for the pre-existing wetlands, extending its bounds as carefully deposited biomass enclaves, and by crafting structures out of such material to encourage habitation of land-dwelling creatures and rodents with specialized zones for the refuge of migratory birds. Structures which act as the foundation for constructs whose purpose is human habitation.

The existing wetlands mentioned above, in particular the lake situated at the centre of the Paljassaare peninsula, was in fact, excited traveller, so stricken by the effects of eutrophication as a result of chemicals and other agents introduced by human activities that the various plant and animal species inhabiting its waters were choked for air and light, dying in droves on a daily basis. Oh what stewardship and care the inhabitants showed to their land! But, luckily, with the transition from the second to the third period of the history of Tallinna, as we talked of before, there was not only a shift in political processes, but by proxy, also a shift in the collective conscious of the citizens whereby they decided that they would live amongst the cold lifeless debris of technological progress, and would instead flourish in a bio-techno-eco-logical world.

Eutrophication of the waters was offset by placing biodegradable light-wells on the surface of the waters where the sun was almost entirely blotted out by blooms, allowing light to penetrate its depths, prompting photosynthesis to occur in the remaining plant life and thus producing oxygen in the otherwise choked habitats. It was further reversed by introducing biotechnological methods to our waste water treatment processes in architectural interventions consisting partly of living tissues which act to filter the water - operating much like the circulatory system of a mammal in its removal of harmful waste products Thus the “Re-metabolization of Paljassaare” began and has continued to develop to this day. (…)

And although the last few eventful years, laden with change to the face of the whole earth, have been more vital in their influence on Paljassaare than the Eight hundred that preceeded them; though the noble landscape of approach to her can now be seen as a continuous landscape of bio-techno-hybridity, there is still so a glimpse of both the natural and the unnatural in her aspect, that the hurried traveller, may still be led to forget the humility of her origin, and shut his eyes to the depth of her previous desolation. The Paljassaare peninsula as a place of industrial ‘progress’, with fields of human waste strewn about, the debris of early-modern ‘progress’ is a thing of yesterday, a mere efflorescence of decay, a stage dream which the first ray of daylight hast dissipated into dust” (2).

In spring 2017, Tallinn Architecture Biennale announced its Vision Competition entitled “Re-metabolizing Paljassaare”, which invited architects, scientists and artists from across the world to define a new urbanity for the unique Paljassaare Peninsula in Tallinn “in an era when no ecosystem remains unaffected by human action”. The call challenged participants to propose design solutions focusing on a new urban condition for the peninsula, informed by local and international networks, including distributed economies of production, resource use and allocation, as well as local specificities.

icelandic trekking cabin

a gift from the huldufólk

Iceland is a small and mysterious Nordic island country with a landscape filled with lava fields, hot springs, mountains and glaciers ... Iceland is a place where ancient legends permeate the air and raw beauty, rugged though it may be at times, saturates the soil.

The aim of this competition is to imagine a versatile architecture for sheltering travelers in this vast, dynamic landscape defined both by its topographic contrast and ecological variation as well as its cultural associations with folklore, wonder and imagination.

As a structure for nomads and backpackers the project is culturally precedented, although urbanely, by the hostel. Within the context of fjords, lava fields, glaciers, and mountains, and accompanied by the respective trekking ethos, the nearest architectural paradigm is perhaps that of a tent. With the purpose of providing lodging for trekkers and their guides to rest, refuel and wait out troublesome weather when necessary, the architectural proposal must be both conscious of Iceland's identity while at once becoming a landmark in and of itself.

The proposal is comprised of a main structure for resting and taking shelter from the elements along with two ancillary spaces for cooking and eating, as well as waste collection. From the exterior these structures are undoubtedly foreign to the otherwise pristine natural landscape, and can deployed in various configurations according to the specific conditions of the site.

The main structure, though seemingly simple in its overall exterior volume, contains a convoluted and voluptuous network of suspended woolly surfaces. Sheathed in hides from native Icelandic sheep, the interior surfaces are taut where necessary and relaxed in other areas to provide a comfortable, even snugly, interior world where the explorer can retreat from the harsh elements of the natural world.

A combination of renewable energy resources including solar and geothermal, water collection and filtration can be utilized to provide power and heat, to be used directly or stored in batteries for later use. While some elements of the design are left open due to budgetary constraints, the design calls for a waste-to-energy loop consisting of the following: a series of small tanks which would collect human waste and produce off-gases, piping to feed the cooking equipment with gas, along with an ancillary duct connecting to the main structure for the purpose of providing heat on an as-need basis.

. . .

Submission to the international Icelandic Trekking Cabins Competition, organized by Bee Breeders in partnership with CDS Nord Property Developers, Iceland. In collaboration with L. Bertolotto. 2016.

neonatal architecture

Death itself might never be entirely overcome. Yet, throughout the ages, technological advancement has promised to alter the way we live while simultaneously revealing our desire to utilize technology to overcome the limitations of our biological constraints.

Since the first uttering of the mythical Daedalus and his creations, in particular the architect’s lesser-known construction of a surrogate body-suit to enable Queen Pasiphaë’s unnatural fornication with the beastly bull, man has speculated on the consequences of a transcendental existence (1). Pasiphaë’s desire to couple with the bull leads Daedalus to fashion a mechanical body-suit, which she inhabits as an extension of her physical body; a literal and figurative second skin. Her own body is unaltered in the process, though it is conceptually cast aside in favor of one more appropriate to the task. This deeply rooted aim to intertwine human biology with technology reflects our desire to overcome our most basic physiological realities, including those concerned with aging, cognitive capacity, sexual ability, and the functioning of various bodily systems.

Like Pasiphaë, the bio(techno)logical reality we crave today is one of physiological enhancement, and in turn, assisted transformation; the Daedalean mechanical body-suit of the architect's antiquated hand has become the biotechnological intervention of the scientist's modern laboratory. Biotechnology has expanded in recent years, to include the rapidly developing field of synthetic biology, which is defined as both “the design and construction of new biological parts, devices and systems” and “the re-design of existing, natural biological systems for useful purposes” (2). Today, we are reminded of such aspirations time and again: from Google's recent creation of a biotech research entity chiefly concerned with lifespan enhancement to Organovo's advances in 3D bioprinting (3).

Philosophers and futurists alike broadly coalesce to envision the emergence of a post-biological era, calling for the social acceptance of the marriage of technology and the human body. Transhumanism, for example, is primarily interested in “the opportunities for enhancing the human condition and the human organism opened up by the advancement of technology …. Transhumanists hope that by responsible use of science, technology, and other rational means we shall eventually manage to become post-human, beings with vastly greater capacities than present human beings have” (4). The desire to transcend the human condition, to become, in effect, “post-human,” is driving the technological agenda of today.

In light of such aims, supported by advances in bioprinting, genetic engineering, and tissue manufacturing in particular, it is probable that a transformation of the human body will not manifest solely in the form of disembodied technological artifacts or prosthetic devices, but rather in the form of highly sophisticated intrabody interventions which will fundamentally alter certain biological truths of the human body. The mechanical body-suit of the past is the genetically edited body of tomorrow.

Operating as a kind of modern-day myth descriptive of a potential future scenario, Neonatal Architecture is rooted in a time where the human body itself, in the form of the inanimate corpse, is considered as a site for such an unnatural intervention. Human gestation, having previously been deemed an unnecessarily dangerous hardship for the human body to endure, and a particularly inconvenient one as well, has been completely supplanted by technological means – a hybrid between engineered tissues and fleshly human remains.

This new bodily extension acts solely as a surrogate womb, providing a safe and convenient substitute for traditional pregnancy and child birth. Leaders the world over endorse the method, noting the extreme drop in maternal and infant mortality rates; postgenderists rightfully declare the host body is free to be of either male or female biological gender; environmentalists and conservationists alike cite that the overpopulation threats of the past have been successfully quelled with population growth at a constant state of renewal, each augmented corpse producing a single child in its place. The method proves its value and, overtime, becomes an integral part of society itself.

Upon the human host's death, a pseudo-organic entity comprised of cultured biological tissue is implanted just inside the anterior abdomen wall of the body; here it develops and thrives by parasitizing the decaying yet nutrient-rich carcass of the deceased. During initial development, the skin of the host body is breached by an external organ designed to support human embryogenesis and nurture fetal development in the coming months. Constructed entirely of cultured living tissues suitable for simulating the environmental conditions and sensuous qualities of the natural female womb, a consistent flow of nutrients and stable conditions allow for a positive growth outcome for the pre-fertilized embryonic egg which it bears (5).

The human body, once understood to be crafted by God and thus regarded as sacred, is now seen as a material to be modified; at the same time, death, generally understood to be the permanent cessation of life-sustaining processes in an organism, becomes a vehicle for life and renewal. However, while such technological progress stands to alter the way we live for the better, the hybridization of natural and quasi-natural systems might lead to a bio-synthetic organismic entity wherein the boundaries of man and technology, and by extension architecture, become confused, yet potentially inseverable and interwoven.

We return to the tale of Daedalus and Pasiphaë. For Pasiphaë, the act of selecting a specific, appropriately designed body was driven by her primary desire to couple with the bull, a yearning which resulted from her being cursed by the gods to harbor such passion in the first place. All else, aside from her lustful ambition, faded from the queen's view. Ironically, however, the post-biological idyll at the heart of Pasiphaë’s impassioned pursuit does not hold in the end: the sexual act between the augmented queen and the beastly bull results in the birth of the flesh-eating, heinous Minotaur, an obvious allegorical device warning not only of the potential danger inherent in pursuing unnatural desire, but also alluding to the uncharted consequences resulting from biotechnological enhancement.

In the time of Daedalus, life on this earth was considered to be a short journey which, upon one's death, led to the infinite afterlife. Today, on the other hand, we harbor no such notions. Life on this earth is understood by modern secular man to be all there is. Death is considered to be the end. In light of this fundamental shift in perspective, it seems only natural that we should want to enhance our lives as much as possible. However, as we enter a future where the desire to transcend our natural limitations is actually enabled by technological means, we must ask if the Daedalean myth of the past, laced with poetical reflections on the human condition alongside fantastical yet carefully considered explorations of its boundaries, has been forgotten, cast aside in favor of a lustful embrace of such a future, without question?

Advances in technology that alter our physical bodies will inevitably inspire correlative changes in the built environment. Even Daedalus, stimulated by the consequence of his prosthetic contrivance, was compelled to construct the Labyrinth in order to confuse and contain the Minotaur. Architecture of the not-too-distant future will quite possibly be imbued with, if not wholly constructed of, living biological material – be it synthetic in its origin, natural, or an amalgam of both. A kind of neonatal creature would thus emerge, one which would call for a new understanding of architecture as a complex vitalized body rather than an inert superficial construct. The human body, as an altered bio-technological entity, would also require a reexamination, not only of its own newfound condition, but also of its relationship to its contemporaneous environment.

The Labyrinth, the fabled mediator between the natural and the unnatural, must be expanded in the future from its storied role as a structure of abyssal seclusion to a similarly convoluted yet increasingly intimate system of newfound interactions between the post-human and architecture, one with the potential to form novel ecological relationships; the specific outcomes of which can only be speculated upon. Perhaps the mere conceptualization of such a biotechnological future necessitates an appropriate philosophical exploration of established notions of what it means to the human being to live, to die, and to inhabit.

NOTES:

1.) The mythical Daedalus, commonly considered the first architect, was a skilled craftsman as well as an artist whose tales speak of his numerous innovations; of particular interest here are his efforts to enhance the human body via technological prosthesis and extension. Accounts can be found in ancient Roman texts such as Pliny the Elder's “Natural History” and Ovid's “Metamorphoses.”

2.) Definition taken from syntheticbiology.org.

3.) Organovo, founded in 2007, is a laboratory and research company that utilizes 3D bioprinting technology in the production and marketing of functional human tissues for medical research applications. In an interview with International Business Times, Organovo’s CEO K. Murphy spoke of his ambitions to manufacture complete human organs for transplant. The company made international headlines in 2015 when it entered an agreement with skincare company L'Oreal to provide 3D printed human skin tissue for product testing purposes.

4.) Transhumanism, now known simply as Human+, or h+ for short, is a global social, cultural, and intellectual movement which crystallized in the latter part of the twentieth century with contributions from philosophers, futurists, biologists, architects, and computer scientists. For more information, visit humanityplus.org.

5.) In-vitro fertilization, the most effective form of assisted reproductive technology (those technologies used to achieve pregnancy including fertility medication, artificial insemination, and surrogacy), is a process by which an egg cell is fertilized by sperm outside the human body and reintroduced to the uterus via surgical means. In Oldham, England in 1978, Louise Brown was the first successful birth as a result of this method and became known as the world’s first “test-tube baby”; in-vitro literally translating as “in glass.” Since that time the method has become a mainstream medical technology, generally reserved, however, for patients who can afford the costly procedures.

Consumerism is no longer an abstract idea to probe philosophically, interpret artistically, refuse or even challenge objectively; rather, it has become culture itself.

It is widely known that systemic obsolescence is a profitable model in the world of product design. The newly released iPhone 6s, though fresh off the assembly line, is undoubtedly slated to be replaced by the iPhone 7's, 8's, and 9's, and so on, of the near future; thus rendering any previous models, as well as any applied cosmetic product - such as a protective case - obsolete. In a consumer culture, the trend of today is the waste of tomorrow. As of late 2015, Apple has sold nearly 1 billion iPhones cumulatively world wide; while the phones themselves are often recycled as the consumer upgrades to a new model, what is to happen to the millions of phone cases, once they are no longer needed?

Toying with the concept of the theoretical fusing of the human being and technology, the design eschews the current notion that technological devices must be weightless, sterile and unobtrusive to the user, and rather asserts its presence via a thick, highly differentiated and complex body. Taking a cue from biological bodies, the soft/smooth interior orifices of the piece allow for storage of various items, while the hard/coarse exterior shell protects the phone itself. Parado(e)xotic Abundance, while obsessively protecting its host as a protective shell for an iPhone 6s, is designed with another purpose in mind ... once disused, the cases are to be deposited into the ocean en masse, an aggregation of consumerist waste forming a synthetic reefscape, providing shelter for scores of underwater creatures to inhabit, breed and thrive.

Though utilizing an organic vocabulary of formal qualities typically considered grotesque and unsightly – body instead of volume, orifice instead of opening, alveola instead of cavities - the project seeks not to render itself as nature, but rather to insert itself into nature as a synthetic inclusion in an otherwise natural system; in particular, the existing coral reefs of the oceans which have become dangerously deteriorated in recent years namely due to the effects of climate change and the corollary rise in water temperature, pollution and excessive harvesting.

The project intends to shed light on the detrimental effects of consumerism on the natural world through its inherent systemic obsolescence and resultant waste while simultaneously providing an ecological incentive to abundant consumerism using such planned obsolescence as a vehicle for sporadic architectural assemblages.

Digitally sculpted from voxel-based geometries of what the author considers 'digital tissues', this object displays such intense textural and topological variation that it stands to push contemporary 3D printing technology to its limits – surely an alternative manufacturing technique capable of producing a shape of such complexity does not exist to-date. For the piece to sink to the ocean floor, as ultimately intended, the material's density must be greater than that of saltwater; such materials include porcelain, heavy metals, and some dense plastics.

. . .

Nominated for the BLOOOM Award by Warsteiner, 2016. Original prototype showcased in group exhibition entitled 'THE RAW EDITION' as part of the Fuorisalone Milan Design Week 2016, curated by SBODIO32, Via Sbodio 32/2 Milan, Italy.

iPhone is a trademark of Apple, Inc.

extradermal vesicles

Work-in-progress ....

"(...) the pocket becomes an external device, a kind of growth, freed from the temporal and interchangeable nature of clothing, while yearning to fuse with the body itself ... a kind of self-applied tumor emerges (...)"

f.a.s.e V2

flavor augmenting scent emitters

An alternate version of the externally worn apparatus (f.a.s.e. V1), here the device is surgically and permanently implanted in the subject’s nasal cavity, seamlessly integrating f.a.s.e. with the user’s own body.

The world, like it or not, is running out of food. According to current UN Water and Food Security projections the human population will reach 9 billion people by the year 2050, while the food demand will have increased by 70% ; while the UN Environment Programme projects that by the year 2080 global agricultural output is likely to fall by 6 % to 16% (1).

F.a.s.e. assumes that by the year 2085, ‘food’ as we know it is no longer considered to be attainable from nature, due to the gross overpopulation of the planet; all remaining natural crop fields have ceased to exist as a result of abusive over-farming of the earth’s resources, over-consumption by its’ inhabitants, and lessened global agricultural productivity due to climate change.

Scientists have thus developed a synthetic nutritional substance, known only as “sustenance gel”: comprised primarily of protein-rich soybean-based products. This timely nutritional breakthrough, while solving the dietetic crisis, did come at some cost to the consumer: zero palpable flavor and smell.

Gustatory (taste nerve) cells are found clustered in the taste buds of the mouth and throat, while Olfactory (smell nerve) cells are stimulated by the odors around us and are located in a remote patch of tissue located high in the nasal cavities and connect directly to the brain itself. While the human tongue can only distinguish among five distinct qualities of taste, the nose can distinguish hundreds and even thousands of substances. It is the combination of these two senses which results in taste as we know it.

F.a.s.e. (flavor augmenting scent emitters) was therefore developed to enhance the experience of tasting this future food with the use of scent dissemination technology worn on the nose itself. Interchangeable scent-filled tips, partially inserted into the nasal orifice at the user’s discretion, connect to intranasal tubes which disseminate scents inside the nasal cavity itself.

Interestingly, recent research suggests that the average individual is capable of distinguishing between over one trillion unique odors (2). Incredibly, through the use of the f.a.s.e. apparatus, future consumers are able to select and combine flavors previously unimaginable, all achieved by engaging the untapped potential of the olfactory scent glands. A single sustenance gel can adopt over 8 trillion different ‘tastes’ with the use of f.a.s.e.

This new system allows for infinite variability, not only in the scents they contain and disperse, but also in their externally visible, formal, textural and polychromatic qualities. As with earlier versions of f.a.s.e., V2 allows user’s taste preferences to become a form of visible self expression without revealing the mechanics of the apparatus itself.

As technology and the body begin to merge in the not-too-distant future, the sanctity of the body will undoubtedly be challenged. Body modification takes on a functional role here, while retaining ornamental qualities reminiscent of the piercings, punctures and adornments of the past.

. . .

Collaboration with Oscar Salguero. Participation in exhibition entitled 'THE RAW EDITION' as part of the Fuorisalone Milan Design Week 2016, curated by SBODIO32. Location: Via Sbodio 32/2 Milan, Italy. Milan's Design Week is the most important event worldwide for design and innovation, with more than 400,000 visitors each year; Fuorisalone is the set of events distributed in different areas of Milan coinciding with the Salone Internazionale del Mobile. Every year, in April, Salone and Fuorisalone define the Fuorisalone Milan Design Week, the most important event in the world for the design addicted.

Exhibition photographs courtesy of SBODIO32.

SOURCES:

1: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. International Decade for Action ' Water For Life' 2005-2015. Water and Food Security: Did You Know? Editor/ Author: Unknown. Site: >www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/food_security<.

in-vitro vase

The In-Vitro Vase stems from experimentation into the notion of the architectural edifice as a scaffolding for natural growth.

A veinous scaffold is intended to house and protect a common lemon which has been splayed open, contents removed and replaced with nutrient-rich soil. A seed is then selected from the disemboweled pulp, and transplanted into the soil. The piece assists natural growth by elevating the lemon off the ground, discouraging mold and decay; while at the same time restricting natural growth via the fibrous, veinous structure which will most assuredly affect the final form of the lemon tree.

Trick it out by adding a water source as shown, or simply enjoy it as a beautiful sculptural piece.

Consumerism is no longer an abstract idea to probe philosophically, interpret artistically, refuse or even challenge objectively; rather, it has become culture itself.

It is widely known that systemic obsolescence is a profitable model in the world of product design. The newly released iPhone 6s, though fresh off the assembly line, is undoubtedly slated to be replaced by the iPhone 7's, 8's, and 9's, and so on, of the near future; thus rendering any previous models, as well as any applied cosmetic product - such as a protective case - obsolete. In a consumer culture, the trend of today is the waste of tomorrow. As of late 2015, Apple has sold nearly 1 billion iPhones cumulatively world wide; while the phones themselves are often recycled as the consumer upgrades to a new model, what is to happen to the millions of phone cases, once they are no longer needed?

Toying with the concept of the theoretical fusing of the human being and technology, the design eschews the current notion that technological devices must be weightless, sterile and unobtrusive to the user, and rather asserts its presence via a thick, highly differentiated and complex body. Taking a cue from biological bodies, the soft/smooth interior orifices of the piece allow for storage of various items, while the hard/coarse exterior shell protects the phone itself. Parado(e)xotic Abundance, while obsessively protecting its host as a protective shell for an iPhone 6s, is designed with another purpose in mind ... once disused, the cases are to be deposited into the ocean en masse, an aggregation of consumerist waste forming a synthetic reefscape, providing shelter for scores of underwater creatures to inhabit, breed and thrive.

Though utilizing an organic vocabulary of formal qualities typically considered grotesque and unsightly – body instead of volume, orifice instead of opening, alveola instead of cavities - the project seeks not to render itself as nature, but rather to insert itself into nature as a synthetic inclusion in an otherwise natural system; in particular, the existing coral reefs of the oceans which have become dangerously deteriorated in recent years namely due to the effects of climate change and the corollary rise in water temperature, pollution and excessive harvesting.

The project intends to shed light on the detrimental effects of consumerism on the natural world through its inherent systemic obsolescence and resultant waste while simultaneously providing an ecological incentive to abundant consumerism using such planned obsolescence as a vehicle for sporadic architectural assemblages.

Digitally sculpted from voxel-based geometries of what the author considers 'digital tissues', this object displays such intense textural and topological variation that it stands to push contemporary 3D printing technology to its limits – surely an alternative manufacturing technique capable of producing a shape of such complexity does not exist to-date. For the piece to sink to the ocean floor, as ultimately intended, the material's density must be greater than that of saltwater; such materials include porcelain, heavy metals, and some dense plastics.

. . .

Participation in exhibition entitled 'THE RAW EDITION' as part of the Fuorisalone Milan Design Week 2016, curated by SBODIO32. Location: Via Sbodio 32/2 Milan, Italy. Milan's Design Week is the most important event worldwide for design and innovation, with more than 400,000 visitors each year; Fuorisalone is the set of events distributed in different areas of Milan coinciding with the Salone Internazionale del Mobile. Every year, in April, Salone and Fuorisalone define the Fuorisalone Milan Design Week, the most important event in the world for the design addicted.

Exhibition photographs courtesy of SBODIO32.

iPhone is a trademark of Apple, Inc.

l.e.m.o.n.: an icy flesh

An installation for the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec 'Inclusions' exhibition during the annual Winter Carnival in Québec City in 2013. The overall objective of the project was to create a structure/ enclosure located on the exterior of the museum, using ice as a primary material. At temperatures ranging from 0 C/ 32F to -10 C/14 F, a drop of water exposed to the environment would become solid almost immediately.

Current design preoccupation with form generation in the digital realm often results in a superficial architecture, one which overlooks the necessary relationship to material realities and place. Here, the installation called for a close examination of material formation, with emphasis not only on the final solid state of the ice formation, but also on the process and environment that facilitate the outcome.

Of interest to me is the ways in which biological bodies negotiate their survival in a hostile environment; in particular, via the boundary between inside/ outside the body itself. A simple example is the common lemon fruit; its thick exterior is a result of the need the protect the soft, fragile interior. Upon slicing open the body of the lemon, a wet/ pulpy/ fleshly interior is revealed; one immediately notices qualities which could potentially inform an icy architecture such as gradation of light (atmospheric), embeddedness (inclusions), fibrous-ity (structure), pulpy wet-ness and materiality (sensuality).

Rather than simply translating these observed phenomena into built form, the project was a result of experimentations whereby a hybridity between structure, material and process was achieved to form and develop into an eventual edifice that was not wholly predetermined. By freezing a particularly thin cheesecloth fabric in a prefabricated form-work in situ, an elegant yet rigid fiber-reinforced system emerged, one which varied in density, texture, porosity and translucency. Composing a series of these panels created a soft and sensual space; while ice as a material, traditionally a bulky brittle solid, was rethought as an ethereal yet spatial element, a thinly formed yet rigid membrane, an icy flesh.

PROCESS:

The common lemon, seen as an informal fibrous organizational and structural system.

Material-based investigations focused primarily on the properties of various natural and synthetic fabrics/ fibers when formed in synthesis with ice; simultaneously, a series of digital-physics models simulated the behavior of fabric deformation against a variety of gridded panels.

A series of patches of the fabric were manually defored, while other panels were entirely laser-cut with dense triangulated patterns. All with the intent of introducing a level of complex local and global behaviors in the final frozen form.

A simple wooden frame with a gridded system of synthetic fibers constituted the form-work. To achieve variations in the formation of the icy cells, a basic algorithm was used to define the layout of the wire scaffold within.

archi-terraria

A cluster of micro-gardens dot the landscape …

Archi-terria are intended to cultivate organic biological material, acting as micro-gardens wherein natural growth and synthetic micro-architectural interventions coexist. Comprised of a 3d-printed scaffolding contained within a glass shell, the form of the scaffolding varies to allow for unforeseen growth patterns and forms to emerge. The 3D-printed scaffolding is covered with a growth medium and are subsequently seeded with biological material.

Common household fungus is cultured in-vitro prior to its inclusion in the Archi-terraria. The base of the glass casing provides a water supply while the discontinuous gasketing allows for proper ventilation. Fungus grows quite quickly and can take on many forms unveiling over time wondrous formations and colors. The returning visitor will also have the chance to view and track the process of natural growth over time; the intervention of the 3d-printed scaffolding may yield formation that have yet to be seen …

The project not only contrasts the vastness of the botanical gardens themselves, within which they are sited, but also contrast the precision of modern man-made materials with the organic informality of natural growth. This project can thus be viewed as a metaphor for the site as a whole, as a sanctuary for natural growth, in relation to the rapidly developing constructions of the modern man-made world. Such a 'looking glass' might allow for the viewer to reflect on the modern condition as it relates to global climate change, population growth, suburban sprawl, et cetera. Is the botanical garden itself relevant more so today than ever before? Are there ways that have yet to be explored that we can co-exist with the natural world in a fuller sense?

Also of interest here is the potential for an architecture to be conceived of and act as a functional, multi-layered body of complex inter-dependencies and even growth.

f.a.s.e

flavor augmenting scent emitters

The world, like it or not, is running out of food. According to current UN Water and Food Security projections the human population will reach 9 billion people by the year 2050, while the food demand will have increased by 70%(1).

F.A.S.E. assumes that by the year 2085, 'food' as we know it is no longer considered to be attainable from nature, due to the gross overpopulation of the planet; all remaining natural crop fields have ceased to exist as a result of abusive over-farming of the earth's resources and over-consumption by its' inhabitants.

Scientists have developed a synthetic nutritional substance, known only as “sustenance gel”: comprised primarily of protein-rich soybean-based products. This timely nutritional breakthrough, while solving the dietetic crisis, did come at some cost to the consumer: zero palpable flavor and smell. F.A.S.E. (flavor augmenting scent emitters) was therefore developed to enhance the experience of tasting this sustenance gel with the use of scent dissemination technology worn on the nose itself.

Gustatory (taste nerve) cells are found clustered in the taste buds of the mouth and throat, while Olfactory (smell nerve) cells are stimulated by the odors around us and are located in a remote patch of tissue located high in the nasal cavities and connect directly to the brain itself. While the human tongue can only distinguish among five distinct qualities of taste, the nose can distinguish over hundreds even thousands of substances. It is the combination of these two senses which results in taste as we know it.

Interestingly, recent research suggests that the average individual is capable of distinguishing between over one trillion unique odors (2). Incredibly, through F.A.S.E., future consumers are able to select and combine flavors previously unimaginable, all achieved by engaging the untapped potential of the olfactory scent glands. A single sustenance gel can adopt over 8 trillion different 'tastes' with the use of F.A.S.E.

As an unforeseen byproduct of this scent dissemination technology, user's taste preferences are made visible and become a form of self expression.

SOURCES:

1: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. International Decade for Action ' Water For Life' 2005-2015. Water and Food Security: Did You Know? Editor/ Author: Unknown. Site: >www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/food_security<.

synthetic reefscapes

The once mass-consumed iPhone 6/6s has been rendered obsolete by the release of the iPhone 7's, 8's, and so on (...) the phones themselves, and in particular the accessory products, are destined to become useless techno-junk.

While obsessively protecting its host as a shell for an iPhone 6/6s while in use, once disused the cases are to be deposited into the ocean en masse - clusters, loose structures, an aggregation of consumerist waste forming a synthetic reefscape wherein underwater creatures might just inhabit and thrive.

Though utilizing an organic vocabulary of formal qualities typically considered grotesque and unsightly – body instead of volume, orifice instead of opening, alveola instead of cavities - the project seeks not to render itself as nature, but rather to insert itself into nature as a synthetic inclusion in an otherwise natural system; in particular, the existing coral reefs of the oceans which have become dangerously deteriorated in recent years namely due to the effects of climate change and the corollary rise in water temperature, pollution and excessive harvesting.

Synthetic Reefscapes, a sister project to Parado(e)xotic Abundance, seeks to shed light on the detrimental effects of consumerism on the natural world through its inherent systemic obsolescence and resultant waste while simultaneously providing an ecological incentive to abundant consumerism using such planned obsolescence as a vehicle for sporadic architectural assemblages.

architecture [or] individuation

the Body from Daedalus to Dissolution

The primordial desire to probe the depths of the human body’s interior has historically been driven by varied and sometimes contradictory aims, pursued through diverse methods, while in many ways contributing to the way we see not only ourselves but our relationship with the outer world - and in turn our relationship with architecture. Corresponding with the mapping of the body through the ages the idea of the body itself has transformed from that of the Daedalean body of mystical potentialities, to the Renaissance body as object to be dissected and anatomized, to the machino-body of the Industrial Revolution, to the digital-data-body of the Information Age as exemplified by contemporary medical imaging – the body as ‘dissolved’ in the digital realm.

the House from Home to Host

With this conceptual transformation in view, one can then begin to trace a relationship between the increase in knowledge of the body’s interior and the disintegration of the notion of the body as purely organic entity. Concurrently, as the body has become less and less ‘purely organic’, architecture has become increasingly imbued with notions of the natural; ultimately resulting in a contemporary concept of architecture which can only be described in biological terms: structure and enclosure have become skeleton, flesh and skin. The distinction between the biological body and the architectural body as obscured, and convoluted; thus marking the conceptual emergence of an architectural entity.

architecture [or] individuation

Theoretically then, as architecture enters the realm of the living it must go through the process of individuation, become individual, and in turn ultimately evolve to avoid obsolescence in a complex, ever-changing and even hostile world. The anti-thesis to traditional concepts of architecture. Might such an individualistic architecture ultimately forsake the function of housing the human being as its sole reason for existence? If not, how might we inhabit such a complex architecture? If so, how might we engage such an entity in order to formulate new ways of habitation? The project herein, while actively dissecting a digitally developed body of architecture, simultaneously explores a series of scenarios whereby the boundaries between man and architecture become confused, yet inseverable and interwoven.

(a)biotic convergence

Part micro-garden, part park, part playground, part impromptu meeting place, the project seeks to provide a place where playing children, foraging hipsters and lunch-break taking adults come together ...

While the project exudes an organic vocabulary of form, it seeks not to render itself as nature, but rather to insert itself into nature as a synthetic inclusion in an otherwise natural landscape; one which, through time, fuses with the natural world to form an amalgamation whereby distinguishable boundaries between the biotic (natural) and abiotic (unnatural) elements are blurred, yet commingled and interwoven.

Situated adjacent to various traditional structures which comprise the historic Church Hill area, the project makes no apologies for itself. The author asserts that injecting such a wholly contemporary, contrasting, even cutting-edge element into the otherwise homogenous setting would allow for a diversity in the built environment which does not exist to-date; thus elevating the image of the area from one that could be considered stagnant and old-fashioned, to one that is undoubtedly forward looking.

. . .

The structure consists of a series of simply constructed interlocking ribs, made possible by modern digital fabrication techniques, which rest on a standard concrete footing. An outer layer of flexible metal mesh would allow for a continuous layer of either exterior grade smooth-finished stucco or 'shotcrete' (spray-applied concrete), depending on budget constraints. Further built elements include custom fabricated seating elements. Again, depending on budget constraints, these elements could either be constructed using vacuum formed plastic, or with a fiber-glass core composite material. Natural materials include grass for the landscaping, a fruit tree as the central vertical element, herbs and flowers to be selected.

epi-dermal landscapes

Skin, the flexible outer covering of vertebrates, is a thick flesh consisting of multiple layers of functional tissue; it is what interfaces with the environment and protects an organism from external forces including pathogens, water loss, abrasions, and so on. It is the literal and physical boundary between the inner body and the outer world – as such, it often varies considerably as it responds not only to these external forces, but to the particularities of the body it protects.

The correlations between biological skin and man-made systems of enclosure in architecture are abound; in fact, a building’s exterior layer is commonly referred to, even conceived of, as a skin. Modern architectural trends explored the skin as a homogeneous and often times continuous surface while more contemporaneous examples tend toward an 'articulated' surface. However, while pragmatic (protective) and abstract (formal) qualities are often translated into architectural form by architects, in both the continuous and articulated surface, a reductive process takes places whereby certain characteristics of biological skin are omitted in favor of a conceivable (often aided by surface-based design software) and construct-able (that which can actually be built) expression. What pervades contemporary practice is an idealized vision of skin as taut and uniform rather than wrinkled and slack, smooth and glossy rather than abrasive and blemished, inert and sterile rather than living and infected.

This tendency of architects to reduce 'skin' to a static, sterile surface condition rather than a complex, dynamic spatial substance is here turned on itself, toward a new understanding of skin. References of human (soft, generally homogeneous) and crocodile (hard, articulated) skin are here combined in a visual portmanteau in the form of a digital mesh that is subsequently manipulated using intensive subdivision, surface deformation and other sculpting operations in 3D space; the results of which can only be described as a landscape - one that wrinkles, cracks and folds.

rupture: cbf hampton roads environmental center

The Chesapeake Bay watershed encompasses parts of six states and houses 17 million people. With more than 100,000 streams, creeks and rivers, it is North America's largest, and the world's third largest, estuary.

Today the bay still enjoys both a stereotypical image of a shore and waterscape associated with relaxation and pleasure, and an intact romantic natural nautical environment. Reality however indicates that the excess nitrogen and phosphorous associated with runoff from human activities have polluted the bay, destroying habitats and killing fish in the process. In recent times, the bay has lost half its forested shoreline, more than half its wetlands, three quarters of its underwater grasses, and 98 percent of its oyster population because of pollution and development.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), formed in 1967, is a group dedicated to saving the bay and develop long range plans for a lasting healthier environment. As a measure of progress, the CBF rates the Bay's health, currently at 31 out of 100. The pristine Bay from the 17th Century rates 100, while the Bay of the 1980s reached the lowest point score of 23. The CBF assumes that their work could perhaps achieve a healthier score of 70.

In order to carry out its mission more effectively, the CBF is in need of a physical location with an architecture that assists both in the identity of organization and operates as a responsible building in this fragile environment. For this endeavor, an undeveloped site adjacent to a densely developed part of Virginia Beach is available to offer an environmental education center and administrative facilities for the CBF and additional conservation groups, with a preliminary name of 'the Chesapeake Bay Foundation Hampton Roads Environmental Center'.

Programmatic elements should include: work and office space for 24 people totaling 3,000 – 3,500 s.f., an event and meeting space for 150 people totaling 3,000 – 3,500 s.f., an education space also totaling 3,000-3,000 s.f., with services (mechanical spaces, storage, restrooms) to be included at an approximate 30% space requirement increase. In addition, direct contact with the water will be necessary with a pier and floating dock to be accommodate a work boat as well as kayaks, with storage space to house the kayaks when not in use. Impervious impacts are to be at least 100'-0” from the shoreline (excluding piers) per the CBF's guidelines.

Upon meeting with representatives from the CBF, one concept was made clear: that the building should be, above all else, a 'sustainable' one. Though LEED accreditation and related rhetoric comes to mind, the design took a different approach and asked 'what will happen to the building, once the CBF achieves its goals?' The building thus must confront contemporary notions of check-list sustainability, and actively foresee its own obsoletion …

Formally, the building seems to rise up from the landscape itself in the form of a tower. The underlying glass and steel structure is encased in a tensile fabric which is punctured in two strategic locations: at the event space, providing an overlook to the nearby bay itself, still in its natural untouched condition; and at the conference room above, opening the view to the developed shores of the beaches nearby. Various functions throughout the building are met via plug-in boxes, installed on an as-need basis, rendering the building largely as nothing more than a vertical warehouse to accommodate varied functionality over time. What was once office space could very well be a concert venue; a conference room, the private retreat for two promiscuous lovers (and their two adventurous children).

Architecture as a host to minor, less permanent architectures.

. . .

Winning proposal for a new headquarters to house the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Design Competition. Virginia Beach, VA. 2011.

digital tissues

from cell to voxel and back again

Influenced by the theoretical dissolution of the human body in the digital realm, particularly the transposition of the fleshly body to a dissolute collection of data points via contemporary medical imaging used to probe its interior, this study has two distinct yet interrelated agendas as it relates to architecture. Firstly, in medical terms superficial anatomy is the study of external surface features of the body, with no regard to the intricate inner workings of the body itself. Contemporary architectural design preoccupation with form generation through digital means is typically superficial in this regard, merely molding a shell in which to place programmatic requirements. This study proposes an alternative, an architectural body which develops due to a specific set of digital-environmental conditions, with no regard to its external surface features. Secondly, the author seeks a reconciliation between an otherwise dissolute field of data and a physical manifestation, a literal reversal of the flesh-to-data body of current medical imaging; a process which unexpectedly results in forms reminiscent of porous tissues, fleshly consistencies and familiar yet uncanny growths.

This study yields what is considered here as a ‘digital-tissue’: an intricate, complex, series of data driven formations. Such formations occur here through a linear process of translation from point to voxel, to a voxel-rich field-condition, to one with added forces of varied types and frequencies, ultimately taking shape via an extrapolated iso-surface. These iso-surface-generated architectures are then further explored as gradient conditions, mesh-dependent 'inter-growths', and manually composed as a multiple-layered 'digital-flesh'. The distinction between cell and voxel becomes curiously blurred...

Easily manifested physically via the hard, almost material-less, white 3d-print of modern digital fabrication - questions concerning the proper material reality for such a digital-tissue to assume as it takes on a physical form arise, as do questions regarding the potential application(s) in the realm of architecture proper. A scaffolding for growth? The living, or the non-living? Ability to control or contain a specific environment via a highly intelligent and differentiated architectural system? Questions such as these allow the work to develop from voxel to complex yet homogeneous ’tissue’ sample, to highly differentiated yet functional ecology.

PROCESS:

This series of experiments began with a simple base geometry as a point of departure, the cube. Initially interpreted as a scalar field of points, this collection of three-dimensional yet static data is then affected with varying degrees of noise which shifts the position of the points in digital-space,

forming voxel-based data, which in turn feeds the formation of a resultant iso-surface, one which is generated through each of the unit-voxels using the Marching Cubes method.

During the process of forming these ‘digital tissues’, one cubic ‘tissue sample’ was selected and modified, morphed, and ultimately spherized using voxel based modeling software, thus allowing the mesh to respond to such deformations as if it were a flexible, skin-like material.

temporary permanence

emergency housing on the outer banks

Hurricanes are a constant on the Outer Banks, with the area experiencing a glancing brush with the storms once every 1/3 years on average, while experiencing a direct hit every 4.3 years on average. Such hurricanes literally move the islands while cutting, forming and reforming the inlets between them.

This competition asks for a proposed house (or set of houses) that can be used as emergency shelter after hurricanes or severe storms occur in the area of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina . . .

Hatteras as a Testing Ground for New Ideas: 99 percent of the time, when there are no hurricanes or earthquakes and their subsequent tsunamis to flee from, multiple fixed sub-marine stations function as kelp farms (which has the potential to be a renewable resource) as well as forming micro-habitats for fish and other aquatic wildlife. In the event of an emergency, these appendage bend and stretch upwards, breaching the surface of the water and thus becoming available to the inhabitants to utilize the built-in utility lines within - these towns people are to be equipped, in every home, with an inflatable temporary 'house' in which they board to safely float on and ride out the tide in times of disastrous weather situations.

Upon flooding, the threshold between land and water is blurred, the lighthouse as a landmark becomes a point around which the inhabitants 'houses' will gather so as to help them reattain their sense of place and reference in the near-unrecognizable world that is the post-disaster zone. The stations are strategically placed so as to create a 'wall' of these appendages when the stations are collectively active, therefore allowing the temporary resident to literally 'ride out' the tide, plug-in to an appendage, congregate with others, and weather the storm!

[Competition hosted by the VSAIA. Selected as Finalist/ Top 5 amongst hundreds of submissions.]

venice

Venice City-Vision Competition is an ideas competition calling on designers to put forth visionary ideas for the future of the City of Venice.

With Venice, we are reminded that anything is possible, that the old and the new can be reconciled, strengthening each other in the process. 'Sustainability' takes on a new meaning here as well.

Intended here is a vision of the future, an undeniable one where this convers(at)ion of city and water has begun, and yet, a beautiful and fantastical new place emerges ...

... an inevitable conclusion, slowly building up ... the line of the City, the line of the Sea, squaring off, sizing each other up, flirting a little in the process ... the two will eventually converge ...

The proposed transition occurs over time until Venice reaches its ultimate climactic state as an [ironically] appropriate and visionary continuation of what was once a great City in the water: a City which has shed its earthly legs altogether ... finding a new home amongst the dream-like bodies of phantasmal water in the sky ...

Just as the mythical Poliphilo entered the woods of uncertainty, so the City of Venice to come must embark on a similar journey, on of radical change. It is so that for life to continue, everything must first be allowed to die gracefully in order to be (re)born anew.

haute vascou(la)ture

The primal desire to explore the depths of the human body has historically been driven by varied and sometimes contradictory aims, pursued through diverse methods, while in many ways contributing to the way we see not only ourselves but our relationship with the outer world, and in turn our relationship with architecture.

“These once fleshly living entities, are here re-composed in new assemblages; ones which speak to symmetry, delicacy and structure while possessing a sophisticated sense of grace.”

Corresponding with the mapping of the body through the ages the idea of the body itself has transformed from that of the antiquarian mystical body, to the Renaissance body as object to be dissected and anatomized, to the machino-body of the Industrial Revolution, to the data-body of the Digital Age - as exemplified by contemporary medical imaging. The body as dissolved in the digital realm.

As much of a response to as an exploitation of the data-body of the contemporary digital dissector, Haute Vas·cou(la)ture uses human cerebral vasculature data as a generator for form, while following two separate yet interrelated fields of inquiry. Firstly, the author argues that the contemporary tendency to import notions of the biological into art and architecture are more often than not superficial and visually obsessed; this series of sculptures, emblazoned in polished gold, acts as a blatant critique to, and a pure embodiment of, superficial architecture.

“What was once understood to be grotesque and unsightly is now undeniably glamorous.”

At the same time, the work seeks a physical output which is radically different from the digital input - in this case primary and secondary blood vessels of the human brain – while commenting on the notion that the interior of the human body, generally considered as a subject of disgust, is here re-presented as an object of precious beauty. What was once understood to be grotesque and unsightly, is now undeniably glamorous.

. . .

3d-prints in Black Nylon and Gold Leaf finish available for purchase at our cyber shoppe here

bodily investigations

revealing the interiority of the mammalian body

The mouse, commonly used as a substitute for the human body in medical trials due to the similarity of their genetic, biological and behavioral characteristics, is here used as a natural specimen for an informal dissection.

Upon the breaching and subsequent removal of the skin, the bodily interior is revealed as a highly differentiated collection of soft, hard, wet, flexible and fragile living tissues; collectively of course, these form a multi-functional yet tightly integrated organic body. What allows the interior bodily systems to operate without being damaged by extreme external forces is the insulative and protective qualities of the outer fleshly covering, the skin. The skin can thus be likened to an architectural membrane, one which protects the fragile interior from the outer, potentially threatening, environs.

Parallels between the biological body and the architectural edifice are abound; though historical and even contemporary tendencies in design thinking tend towards an architecture of homogeneity rather than differentiation, a constructed materiality that is hard and inflexible rather than soft and adaptable, and systems which are autonomous rather than inextricably linked.

This live demonstration, where participants were invited to view, touch, and even smell the exposed bodily interior of the freshly dissected specimen, was intended as a reminder of the limitations of our current understanding of architecture, while at once acting as a brutal confrontation with the physical qualities (repugnant though they may be) inherent in the complex mammalian body.

In light of recent trends to superficially naturalize architecture via organically inspired form alone, I argue here that architecture, like the natural body, is a complex and interwoven collection of multifarious systems including hvac (temperature regulation), electrical (nervous/ communication), plumbing (vascular) structure (skeletal), enclosure and insulation (dermal), openings (orifices), etc. Might architecture in the near future abandon its hard, artificial, life-less qualities in favor of the soft, the natural, the fleshly? The living? Surely, organic form alone is not enough …

Presentation at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Critics: Marjan Colletti, Pavlos Fereos.

inverted flesh

breaching the continuity and inviolability of the skin

An extension of the 'bodily investigations' series, inverted flesh seeks to explore the aesthetic consequences of violating the exteriority of the body's skin.

Functionally the skin's ability to encase, containing various bodily systems and structures unfit for external exposure, allows for the body's survival in a hostile environment. The general uniformity and overall continuity of the skin allows for the body to be perceived as an indivisible whole, rather than a collection of divisible parts.

Inverted flesh intends to toy with existing realities and perceptions of the body by exploring the skin as a site for sprawling extraneous matter – extra-dermal growths possessive of physical qualities usually reserved for interior fleshly consistencies.

RIBA pylon competition

This RIBA Competition was an open call to designers to propose a new generation of electricity pylon. As well as exploring the design of the 'object', the competition also sought to explore the relationship between the infrastructure and the landscape within which it is placed - all the while balancing the community needs whilst preserving the beauty of the rural English landscape.

The primary aim of this project is to propose a delicate pylon structure that provides for minimum disturbance to the quality of the English countryside while avoiding bland repetition. The components, while singularly quite simple, are designed to be assembled in numerous configurations allowing for an infinite sequence of variations. Their natural characteristic is thus to carry on a constantly changing dialogue between these variations, the local topography and the ever-shifting perspective of the viewers.

Adaptive and responsive to the landscape and designed to impose as few formal boundaries as possible, every variation nonetheless has an inherent elegance. Yet the number of component variable is minimum - it is a question of composition, direction and setting.

The proposed material of the pylons is an aluminum matrix composite which increases the stiffness and strength whilst maintaining lightweight density, allowing for a delicate structure to cheerfully 'dance' along the (at times moody) English countryside.

...

CRAB is the office of Sir Peter Cook and Gavin Robotham: located in London and founded in 2006. Peter Cook, a founding member of Archigram, is the architect of the blue and much-published Kunsthaus in Graz (with Colin Fournier). Cook and Robotham have a core team with a long track record of building construction, but also attract an especially talented series of young architects as well as interns. Most of these have been their own students or selected as a result of their extensive links as examiners and critics at key schools in London, New York, Los Angeles, Vienna and Paris. This combination of talent is exercised through a constant flow of projects ranging from master-planning, through innovative structures, sheds, kiosks, inflatables, research projects, furniture elements and even peripatetic bridge-top cafes. At CRAB no configuration, combination of techniques or materials is creatively rejected without investigation.

Project Team:

Sir Peter Cook, Gavin R., Steven A., Stefanos R., Zack S.

Structural Consultants; Bollinger and Grohmann Ingenieure

[Drawings Property of CRAB Studio, 2011.]

a collection of worlds

into the depths of House

The House has been central to Architectural theory since mankind's desire to abandon natural forms of shelter (ie.: the cave, the forest canopy, etc.) led him to fashion, according to Laugier in his Essay on Architecture, an abode of found branches and leaves to shelter him more effectively. Thus, when Laugier's “rustic cabin”, also known as the 'primitive hut', first stood erect as an inhabitable structure independent of nature, as a result of man's determination and resourcefulness, the House emerged as the archetype of Architecture.

“The little rustic cabin (…) is the model upon which all the magnificences of architecture have been imagined (...) Pieces of wood raised perpendicularly, give us the idea of columns. The horizontal pieces that are laid upon them, afford us the idea of entablatures. In fine the inclining pieces which form the roof give us the idea of the pediment.”

Prior to providing a detailed account of his order of architecture, Laugier cites the Maison Carée at Nîmes as an example of a building comprised of only the column, entablature and pediment, and reasons this is why it is considered beautiful by all, further stating that “such a simplicity and grandeur (…) strikes every eye”. Such a statement, though telling of the potential for architecture to invoke a kind of aesthetic reverence in the viewer of its outward appearance (and as justification for an order of architecture as comprised of specific classical elements), inadvertently reduces Architecture to a solely visual endeavor, treating the descendents of the archetypal House as mere superficial objects.

“I can see nothing therein (of the rustic cabin), but columns, a floor or entablature; a pointed roof whose two extremities each of them forms what we call a pediment. As yet there is no arch, still less of an arcade, no pedestal, no attique, no door, even nor window. I conclude then with saying, in all the order of architecture, there is only the column, the entablature, and the pediment that can essentially enter into this composition. If each of these three parts are found placed in the situation and with the form which is necessary for it, there will be nothing to add; for the work is perfectly done.”

This kind of reduction leaves much to be desired regarding the potential for the interior spaces within this newly created world of the House. While the interiority of Laugier's abode is secondary to the basic necessary elements which comprise such a primal architectural edifice, we find the opposite in a poetical reading of the spaces of House. In Bachelard's Poetics of Space: the Classic Look at How We Experience Intimate Places, he describes the primary benefit of the House as follows:

“The house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.”

The role of Architecture for Bachelard is not mere shelter for the body, nor is it simply articulation of structure for the enjoyment of the eye, nor is it simply a space which one can 'see nothing therein', but rather it is the creation of a place, one which fosters a kind of poetic reverberation in the psyche of man.

For clarification as to what such a place might consist, as it relates to the inhabitant and his relationship to the House, we find direction in the words of Schulz in his Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture:

“Man dwells when he can orient himself within and identify himself with an environment, or, in short, when he experiences the environment as meaningful. Dwelling therefore implies something more than “shelter”. It implies that the spaces where life occurs are places, in the true sense of the word. A place is a space which has a distinct character. Since ancient times the genius loci, or “spirit of place”, has been recognized as the concrete reality man has to face and come to terms with in his daily life. Architecture means to visualize the genius loci, and the task of the architect is to create meaningful places, whereby he helps man to dwell.”

The House, as a theoretical construct at least, is both the concrete manifestation of our physical needs and simultaneously of our psychological needs, acting as the locus for and receptacle of our most deepest desires, memories and even dreams. A House is a place in the world. In his concept of place, Schulz is undoubtedly indebted to Heidegger, who further expands our notion of what is meant by dwelling, in his essay entitled Building Dwelling Thinking, as follows:

“To be a human being means to be on the earth as a mortal. It means to dwell.” (…) “We do not dwell because we have built, but we build because and have built because we are dwellers.”

Heidegger goes on to provide an account of the world we dwell in his account of the fourfold, whereby earth and sky, divinities and mortals belong, comprising a 'oneness'; his holistic world-view considers man not only as a being in the world, but a part of the unity of the fourfold. In addition to the dualistic relationship between man and the world as being central to dwelling, for Heidegger, the nature of dwelling is (naturally) to “preserve” the fourfold unity of the world. To dwell is to be human, to be human is to be both in and of the world. How is it then, that we dwell? We turn to his thoughts in Poetically Man Dwells for clarification:

“Poetry is what really lets us dwell. But through what do we attain to a dwelling place? Through building. Poetic creation, which lets us dwell, is a kind of building. Thus we confront a double demand: for one thing, we are to think of what is called man's existence by way of the nature of dwelling; for another, we are to think of the nature of poetry as a letting-dwell, as a – perhaps even the – distinctive kind of building. If we search out the nature of poetry according to this viewpoint, then we arrive at the nature of dwelling.”

Heidegger sees poetry and dwelling, and by extension building, as interwoven. Dwelling then, involves not only embeddedness in the world, or for Heidegger the fourfold structure of the world, but also assumes a necessary relationship with the poetical. Theoretically, it would seem, we are approaching an understanding of what it means to dwell, to build, and subsequently to inhabit.

And yet, have we made progress? Beyond the realm of superficial objects, do we understand what a House truly is? Its purpose? The vagueness of Bachelard's desire to "dream in peace", presumably distanced from the outer world, when held in concert with Schulz's desire to "visualize the genius loci", to literally bring forth the spirit of a place, presents us with a spatial dilemma: one which seems to call for a space of neutrality and simultaneously for one which differentiates itself from other spaces by means of its unique character, as a place in and of itself.

We return to our initial search into the nature of the interiority of the House. For Kahn, an architect widely known for his poetic spatial and material sensibilities, the question is a simple one:

“The Kitchen wants to be the living room.

The Bed Room wants to be a little house by itself.

The car is the room on wheels.

In searching for the nature of the spaces of house

might they not be separated a distance from each other

theoretically before they are brought together.

A predetermined total form might inhibit what the

various spaces want to be.”

. . .

The House seen as a Collection of Worlds

The anatomy of a 'typical' single family house, explored via a cross-sectional collage of individual found images beset on a black background, leads to a personal interpretation of the House as an inversion of the standard holistic form: an amalgam of interior spaces, the settings where our most personal interactions with Architecture occur, a collection of Worlds.

The House as holistic object within the larger context of the world, whose integrity as a whole allows for our interpretation of it as such, begins to dissolve. The classical paradigm of the House as superficial object begins to give way as the varied spaces seem to transcend their allotted boundaries … to find their true form, perhaps?

Three distinct spaces: a place to cleanse, a place to cook and eat meals, a place to sleep and awake, are identified as fundamental to the larger body of the House, anchoring its inhabitant to it through the habitual and necessary acts which take place there.

The investigation continues with questioning the nature of what is essential to these distinct spaces to retain their character as such, while viewing them as separate spatial entities void of context outside of themselves – any reference to external context is to be considered abstract in the ideal sense. Such a process, while fundamentally flawed in a traditional and pragmatic way, may act as a vehicle of discovery as it relates to the nature of the spaces which comprise House, thus shedding light on the rich potentiality inherent in the interiority of the House itself.

The revealing of the essence of each space is described textually in no more than two Quatrains - traditional poetical form containing a stanza of four lines. It is from these descriptions that the inspiration for the eventual designs are derived.

a place to prepare and eat meals

the relationship between

these fundamentally bound

yet distinct

spaces

. . .

a table awaits

a blank canvas upon which to present

the fruits of ones' efforts

to themselves or others

a place to cleanse

the presence

of water

falling on

falling away

. . .

a private place

of healing

of cleansing

of renewal

a place to sleep and awake

the presence of light

in varying conditions

from night

to day

. . .

a safe place

of contemplation

of rest

a place to dream

...

Reflections on the three distinct spaces

A place to prepare and eat meals is conceived as two spaces which are distinct functionally, yet fundamentally bound architecturally. A hearth stands to divide and simultaneously join these spaces; fire, being instinctively integral to the act of cooking, is here offered as a gift to the inhabitants … to utilize or to simply acknowledge the presence of. Entry into the space to eat is along a narrow path which slowly descends into the cooking area. The verticality of this space would allow for ventilation as well as the entry of natural light, with the added effect of encasing the humble act of cooking in an unpretentious yet flattering space. Residing adjacently awaits a table, a blank canvas upon which to present the fruits of one's efforts, to themselves or others.

A place to cleanse is seen as a room within a room, a preparatory space surrounding a space devoted to the act of what we call 'taking a shower' or 'bathing'; here, of course, the spatial consequence of such an act is reconsidered. The preparatory space houses two handles on either side of the space which control the levels of hot and cold water entering the space of cleansing; once at their desired levels, the mixture of hot and cold water falls from above along a path of steel plates, forming a wall of water to enter into and under, a spatial element in and of itself. Light from above is diffused in this way as well, becoming one with the water which falls on and away through an abysmal drain below.

A place to sleep and awake. The idea of such a place as a safe haven within the outer world acts as a generator for the space itself. The incorporation of the bed as an integral spatial element in the composition, the roof as a critical element, the controlled presence and absence of natural light, and the method of entry are all of primary concern in the shaping of this space. Entry through a heavy wall becomes the threshold whereupon entry into this world begins; this thick wall also supports necessary storage spaces. The roof takes on a geometry of its own, sloping down from the point of entry to the location of the bed; while at once folding up and open on the sides to admit natural light in varying conditions from what could be night and day.